Minnesota inmates were smoking up a storm the last week of July, trying to
inhale the last puff of pleasure from the last pack of cigarettes. Starting
August 1, 1997, state prisons were smoke free. State officials say the new law
should curb spiraling health care costs. Prisoners, some of whom have smoked their
whole lives, say eliminating their last source of pleasure is just another way
to punish them. Rachel Reabe of our Mainstreet Radio team has the story.

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Greg Fallin, a 45-year-old inmate at Stillwater prison, has been
smoking
cigarettes since he was a kid. He quit once and remembers the awful first few
weeks. Fallin's back to smoking three packs a day and not
looking forward to August l when Minnesota prisons go smoke-free.

Fallin: First your nerves start going, you get stretched wire thin, hands
start shaking, headaches, you want to stay as far away from anybody - any
little thing will set you off.

When he quit before, Fallin was a free man. Long drives in the car and lots of
distractions helped him get through. This time, he's in a seven by nine foot
cell surrounded by thirteen hundred inmates.

Fallin: You got people here who are sitting here day after day - some will never
get out. The state of Minnesota has no conception. They sugar coat it but
they have no conception whatsoever the level of frustration that is
building and will continue to build. You magnify that by taking away anything that would
help pacify and you're sitting on a powder keg. You got a big problem.

Almost three-quarters of Minnesota's 5000 inmates smoke. The ban is
also going to affect prison employees who will not be able to smoke or have
tobacco in their possession on prison grounds. Stillwater Warden David Crist
acknowledges the next few weeks are going to be challenging.

Crist: It's going to be neccessary for staff and inmates to count to l0 a little
more often, be a little more thoughtful in response to provocation. It's going to be hot,
it's going to be humid, which are things that tend to make
people crabby anyway, and then there'll be the added irritability that goes
along with withdrawing from tobacco. There may be some difficult times.

Seventeen million dollars was spent on inmate health care in Minnesota last
year. That's 10% of the total budget for corrections, according to
the department's health care administrator Dana Baumgartner.

Baumgartner: As a health care professional, certainly I am aware of the costs
associated with cigarette smoking. I think the policy is appropriate and could result in
significant savings of tax-payer dollars.

Baumgartner points the most common smoking-related ailments are emphysema
and heart disease, but adds that smoking excacerbates almost any medical
condition. Senator Dave Kleiss of St. Cloud who authored the legislation
banning tobacco, says it's a reasonable restriction.

Kleiss: Most people don't know smoking is even allowed, and are quite
outraged we pay 100% of health care costs, with health care costs over $l00/day per inmate.

Prisoners in Minnesota have had plenty of time to get used to the no smoking
idea. The new law passed a year and a half ago. Proponents hoped the long lead
time would encourage inmates to gradually kick the habit. It hasn't happened.
Just 20 of Stillwater's 1300 inmates have opted for nicotine
patches to help them quit smoking.

Inmate John Chambers says he can't afford it.

Chambers: They're selling these nicotine patches to us at our expense. That's
roughly $80 for one month's supply, and if you're making 40 cents an hour at your
job, how are you going to pay? July 3l, I'll still be smoking - right
up to the bitter end. I don't want to quit. I don't have that desire.

Stillwater health officials say they're disappointed more inmates haven't taken
advantage of the patches or the free stop-smoking workbooks and videos. They
expect business to pick up after August l.

In mid-July, cigarettes remain by far the most popular purchase in the
prison canteen. Down in the basement of the Stillwater prison, inmates wait
impatiently for their orders to be filled during their weekly canteen shopping
trip. The store offers some 400 products including a variety of groceries,
toiletries, magazines, and cards. But tobacco products dominate the
sales, accounting for one-fourth of the canteen business. At Stillwater,
Minnesota's largest prison, 25,000 cartons of cigarettes were sold
to inmates last year. System-wide, Minnesota prisoners spend almost $1.3 million
annually on cigarettes.

Some of those cigarettes are purchased by inmates who don't smoke but use them
for bartering purposes. When tobacco becomes contraband on August 1, Assistant
Corrections commissioner Erik Skon says something else will be used.

Skon: Human beings are very resourceful people and if you eliminate one form of
cash so to speak, they will develop another form. They'll resort to other
things. More candybars or pop.

Stillwater inmates have filed a lawsuit in federal district court calling the
tobacco ban unconstitutional. They claim it's additional punishment and
constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. One of the authors, inmate Gale
Rachuy, says the smoking ban is not fair.

Rachuy: They didn't say everybody in Minnesota was going to quit smoking,
just the
prisoners. I don't why. Why don't they just leave us alone. Isn't it bad
enough just being here?

The state attorney general's office has filed a motion to dismiss the inmates'
lawsuit, but, pending court action, the tobacco ban will take place as scheduled.
Five other states already have smoke-free prisons. Georgia tried going smoke
free in 1995, but corrections officials there say it became a major management
problem, with frequent fights and a thriving black market where cigarettes
were going for $20 a pack. After five months, the tobacco ban was
lifted.

In Minnesota, corrections officials point out all but a handful of county jails
are already smoke free. State Senator Dave Kleis says banning tobacco in the
state's prisons is a reasonable restriction.

Kleis: I don't think prison is a place where there should be a lot of pleasures
and comforts. You pay your debt to society. You certainly have a choice whether
to commit a crime in the first place. It shouldn't be a place you want to
go and certainly shouldn't be a place you ever want to return to after you're
released.

Minnesota and Indiana will be the sixth and seventh states to ban tobacco in
their prisons August l. Michigan is scheduled to go smoke free in 1998 and a
handful of other states are considering banning tobacco.